Gill did claim she called the CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., 18 hours before the 1969 SDS-led University Hall occupation, "to warn the Agency." She said the CIA took no action because of administrative foul-ups.

She said she attended national actions for the FBI, although she declined to specify her role in them. She did explain that the FBI warned her to avoid militant confrontations. "They told me to avoid violence or serious trouble," she said.

Gill stresses that she worked with--not for--the FBI. She said she helped them because she feared SDS was a threat to national and local security, "but I always tried to do all I could for the poor."

"I legitimately represented the interests of the 64 families in my Mount Auburn St. apartment building," she said.

Gill said her desire to help the poor at times conflicted with her intelligence work. "I walked a razor's edge for four years," she said.

Gill complained about what she called the poor pay and lack of training in intelligence work. "They send youngsters into the field who don't know anything," she said. "That's why most informers only last for two to six months."

Gill seems to have a special vendetta against the CIA and its Cambridge chief, Herman A. Mountain, whom she claimed she knows. When informed that Mountain had refused comment on the case, she responded, "Herman's scared. He's nothing but a pussy-cat."

Those who knew Gill in her Cambridge days seriously question her credibility. They say she was considered "a lunatic" then and doubt her ability to perform skillful undercover work rationally.

Arthur C. Egan, chief investigative reporter for William Loeb's Manchester N.H., Union-Leader, agrees. He said Tuesday Gill was "extremely neurotic" and that she always feared for her life.

Coming from a correspondent from a conservative newspaper likely to grant Gill more than a perfunctory hearing, Egan's assessment is particularly telling.

Still, although perhaps many of Gill's allegations should be taken with a healthy dose of salt, her role with the FBI at least is unmistakably true. And until contrary evidence appears, much of the rest of her story will have to be weighed seriously.

"I'm completely independent," Gill said yesterday. "Neither Harvard, MIT, the FBI nor the CIA could comprehend me.